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Latest Update on Our GoFundMe Campaign
Thank you to those of you who have donated to our GoFundMe campaign. So far, with online and snail mail donations, we have raised $38,008 of our $50,000 goal.
You can read about our plans and donate here. If you would prefer donating via check, please send to:
The Book Report, Inc.
16 Mt. Bethel Road, Suite 365
Warren, NJ 07059
Thank you again for your consideration and your donation.
Carol Fitzgerald (Carol@bookreporter.com)
Click on the image above to enter our End-of-the-Year Contest.
This will be your last newsletter reminder before the contest ends on Monday, January 4th at noon ET.
Carol talks about the 42 books that we're giving away in our End-of-the-Year Contest.
Click on the photo above for the video and here for the podcast.
In this year's Holiday Author Blog series, six authors have shared with us
their favorite memories of giving or receiving books during the holidays.
Please note: There will be no "On Sale This Week" newsletter on December 29th as we pause to celebrate the holidays, thus we are covering releases from now through the week of January 4th in this edition. Our next newsletter will be sent on January 5th. Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and a very, very Happy New Year!
In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of December 21st, December 28th and January 4th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.
This week, we are calling attention to our Reviewer Picks for 2020, where our reviewers reveal their favorite books of the year, and various "Best Of" lists that we've compiled from around the web. Let us know how many print books and e-books you've read, and how many audiobooks you've listened to, in 2020 in our latest poll.
Also, be sure to check out our Holiday Author Blogs, which have returned for a 13th consecutive year. Six authors shared with us some wonderful memories of giving or receiving books during the holidays. This year's contributors are Janet Skeslien Charles (THE PARIS LIBRARY), Patricia Engel (INFINITE COUNTRY), John Hart (THE UNWILLING), Deborah Goodrich Royce (FINDING MRS. FORD), Liese O'Halloran Schwarz (WHAT COULD BE SAVED), and Sharon Virts (MASQUE OF HONOR: A Historical Novel of the American South).
And please keep in mind our very special End-of-the-Year Contest featuring Carol’s Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2020. One Grand Prize winner will be awarded all 42 books, while 14 other winners will receive a selection of three of these titles. The deadline for your entries is Monday, January 4th at noon ET.
We have a video and podcast where Carol talks about each of the Bets On books we're giving away in the contest. We’ve cued where you can find each title --- and we also have links to the author interviews for the books mentioned where those are available. As we recorded this wrap-up, Carol realized that we interviewed 36 of the authors!
For those of you who are doing online shopping, if you use the store links below, Bookreporter.com gets a small affiliate fee on your purchases. We would appreciate your considering this!
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound
Upcoming Virtual Book and Author Events
As so many book and author events are happening online these days, we are highlighting a number of them that you may be interested in attending. Click on the links below for more info and to register.
Tuesdays at 7:30pm ET: "Talking ETERNAL with Lisa Scottoline": Join Lisa Scottoline every Tuesday night at 7:30pm ET on Facebook as she premieres a new episode from her video series, "Behind the Book: Talking ETERNAL," which reveals behind-the-scenes looks at the inspirations of her upcoming historical fiction book, ETERNAL, releasing on March 23rd. And stay tuned because immediately following each video premiere, Lisa hosts a Facebook Live to talk about the video.
Wednesday, December 23rd at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": Join the "Friends and Fiction" authors --- Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Patti Callahan Henry and Mary Alice Monroe --- as they celebrate Christmas.
Wednesday, December 30th at 7pm ET: "Friends and Fiction": The "Friends and Fiction" authors will talk to author Anne Bogel, creator of the blog Modern Mrs. Darcy and host of the podcast "What Should I Read Next?"
Tuesday, January 5th at 7:30pm ET: Greenlight Bookstore Virtual Event: Robert Jones, Jr., creator of the social justice social media community Son of Baldwin, joins Greenlight (virtually!) to celebrate the launch of his debut novel, THE PROPHETS. He will be joined in conversation with Kiese Laymon, the award-winning author of HEAVY and HOW TO SLOWLY KILL YOURSELF AND OTHERS IN AMERICA.
Tuesday, January 5th at 8pm ET: Warwick's Virtual Event: Warwick's, in partnership with HarperCollins, will host Brad Taylor as he discusses his new book, AMERICAN TRAITOR, with television news anchor, correspondent, commentator and columnist Antonio Mora.
This Week's Bonus News: Reviewer Picks for 2020,
"Best Of" Lists from Around the Web,
and Our Year-End Poll
Bookreporter.com Reviewers Choose Their Favorite Books of 2020
Recently we asked our reviewers to provide us with a list of some of their favorite books from 2020. Included is a mix of fiction and nonfiction titles, all published this year. Take a moment to read these varied lists of titles and see if you agree with any of their selections! Please note that due to personal and professional commitments, some reviewers were not able to participate in this feature.
2020 “Best Of” Lists from Around the Web
This is the time of year when “Best Of” lists are everywhere. These annual roundups always seem to spark lively discussions among readers as they reflect on their favorite books of the year. Although we at Bookreporter.com don’t have a “Best Of” list of our own, we’ve compiled a number of them for you here. See which of your top picks appear on these lists and which titles you feel should've been included but weren't. Perhaps you’ll even find some books to add to your reading list as we head into the new year!
Bookreporter.com's Year-End Poll
How many print books and e-books did you read in 2020? How many audiobooks did you listen to? Click here to cast your votes!
On Sale the Week of December 21st in Hardcover
December 23rd
THE MIDLIFE MIND: Literature and the Art of Aging by Ben Hutchinson (Developmental Psychology)
The meaning of life is a common concern, but what is the meaning of midlife? With the help of illustrious writers such as Dante, Montaigne, Beauvoir, Goethe and Beckett, THE MIDLIFE MIND sets out to answer this question. Erudite but engaging, it takes a personal approach to that most impersonal of processes: aging. From the ancients to the moderns, from poets to playwrights, writers have long meditated on how we can remain creative as we move through our middle years. There are no better guides, then, to how we have regarded middle age in the past, how we understand it in the present, and how we might make it as rewarding as possible in the future.
Reaktion Books | 9781789143508
RUSSIA AS EMPIRE: Past and Present by Kees Boterbloem (History)
Covering more than 1,000 years of tumultuous history, RUSSIA AS EMPIRE shows how the medieval empire of Kyivan Rus’ metamorphosed into today’s Russian Federation. Kees Boterbloem vividly and lucidly describes Russia’s various incarnations and considers how the concept of empire evolved from tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union, and how and why it survives today. He discusses the ideological architects of these empires and the ideas of their political leaders --- the tsars, Lenin, Stalin, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. The book considers the role of the various empires’ inhabitants, revealing how and why they adhered to, or believed in, their country’s imperial mission. What emerges is a highly original overview that illuminates the continuities and discontinuities in Russian history.
Reaktion Books | 9781789142914
On Sale the Week of December 21st in Paperback
December 22nd
REVOLUTION: The History of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo by Peter Ackroyd (History)
In REVOLUTION, Peter Ackroyd takes readers from William of Orange's accession following the Glorious Revolution to the Regency, when the flamboyant Prince of Wales ruled in the stead of his mad father, George III, and England was --- again --- at war with France, a war that would end with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.
A Thomas Dunne Book for St. Martin's Griffin | 9781250765970
WE, THE SURVIVORS by Tash Aw (Fiction)
Born and raised in a Malaysian fishing village, Ah Hock favors stability above all, a preference at odds with his rapidly modernizing surroundings. So what brings him to kill a man? This question leads a young, privileged journalist to Ah Hock’s door. While the victim has been mourned and the killer has served time for the crime, Ah Hock's motive remains unclear, even to himself. His vivid confession unfurls over extensive interviews with the journalist, herself a local whose life has taken a very different course. The process forces both the speaker and his listener to reckon with systems of power, race and class in a place where success is promised to all yet delivered only to its lucky heirs.
Picador | 9781250757920
On Sale the Week of December 28th in Hardcover
December 29th
HUSH-HUSH: A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods (Thriller/Adventure)
Stone Barrington is settling in for some downtime in New York City when an anonymous enemy makes himself known. This nameless foe's threats hit close to home, and before Stone can retaliate, the fearsome messages turn into very real consequences. With the help of old friends --- and a lovely new tech-savvy acquaintance --- Stone sets out to unravel the fatal agenda. But as the web of adversaries expands, Stone realizes that no place is safe, and he'll have to flush out the mastermind before he and those closest to him are silenced for good.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593188354
MARION LANE AND THE MIDNIGHT MURDER by T.A. Willberg (Historical Mystery)
A mysterious group of detectives recruited for Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries use their cunning and gadgets to solve crimes that have stumped Scotland Yard. Late one night in April 1958, a filing assistant at Miss Brickett’s receives a letter of warning, detailing a name, a time and a place. She goes to investigate but finds the room empty. At the stroke of midnight, she is murdered by a killer she can’t see --- her death the only sign she wasn’t alone. It becomes chillingly clear that the person responsible must also work for Miss Brickett’s, making everyone a suspect. Marion Lane, a first-year Inquirer-in-training, finds herself drawn ever deeper into the investigation.
Park Row | 9780778389330
THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE by Marie Benedict (Historical Mystery)
In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car --- strange for a frigid night. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away. The puzzle of those missing 11 days has persisted. Acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such murky historical mysteries.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492682721
On Sale the Week of December 28th in Paperback
December 29th
AFTER SUNDOWN by Linda Howard and Linda Jones (Romantic Suspense)
Sela Gordon, the shy owner of a Tennessee general store, finds safety in solitude. But if anyone can pierce her protective shell, it’s the handsome, mysterious ex-military man living alone in the wilds of Cove Mountain. For two years, Ben Jernigan has kept his distance --- until the day he appears to warn her that a catastrophic solar storm capable of taking down the power grid is coming. Now, Sela must find the courage to become the leader Wears Valley needs. As panic spreads, Sela and Ben discover that in the dark, cut off from the outside world, there’s no more playing it safe --- in life or in love.
Avon | 9780062422033
THE AUTHENTICITY PROJECT by Clare Pooley (Fiction)
Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian, believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes --- in a plain, green journal --- the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves --- and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café.
Penguin Books | 9781984878632
THE BLACK SWAN OF PARIS by Karen Robards (Historical Fiction)
Paris, 1944. Celebrated singer Genevieve Dumont is both a star and a smokescreen. An unwilling darling of the Nazis, the chanteuse’s position of privilege allows her to go undetected as an ally to the resistance. When her estranged mother, Lillian de Rocheford, is captured by Nazis, Genevieve knows it won’t be long before the Gestapo succeeds in torturing information out of Lillian that will derail the upcoming allied invasion. The resistance movement is tasked with silencing her by any means necessary --- including assassination. But Genevieve refuses to let her mother become yet one more victim of the war. Reuniting with her long-lost sister, she must find a way to navigate the perilous cross-currents of Occupied France undetected --- and in time to save Lillian’s life.
Mira | 9780778311072
THE CHANEL SISTERS by Judithe Little (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
Abandoned by their family at a young age, Antoinette and Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel have grown up under the guidance of nuns preparing them for simple lives as the wives of tradesmen or shopkeepers. At night, their secret stash of romantic novels and magazine cutouts beneath the floorboards are all they have to keep their dreams of the future alive. The walls of the convent can’t shield them forever, and when they’re finally of age, the Chanel sisters set out together with a fierce determination to prove themselves worthy to a society that has never accepted them. But their lives are again thrown into turmoil when World War I breaks out, forcing them to make irrevocable choices.
Graydon House | 9781525895951
FIRST CUT by Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell (Mystery)
For San Francisco’s newest medical examiner, Dr. Jessie Teska, it was supposed to be a fresh start. A new job in a new city. A way to escape her own dark past. Instead she faces a chilling discovery when an opioid-overdose case contains hints of something more sinister. Jessie’s superiors urge her to close the case, but as more bodies land on her autopsy table, she uncovers an elaborate plot involving drug dealers and Bitcoin brokers. Autopsy means “see for yourself,” and Jessie Teska won’t stop until she has seen it all --- even if it means that the next corpse on the table could be her own.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335081339
HOUR OF THE ASSASSIN by Matthew Quirk (Political Thriller)
As a Secret Service agent, Nick Averose spent a decade protecting the most powerful men and women in America and developed a unique gift: the ability to think like an assassin. Now, he uses that skill in a little-known but crucial job. As a “red teamer,” he poses as a threat, testing the security around our highest officials to find vulnerabilities --- before our enemies can. He is a mock killer, capable of slipping past even the best defenses. His latest assignment is to assess the security surrounding the former CIA director at his DC-area home. But soon after he breaches the man’s study, Nick finds himself entangled in a vicious crime that will shake Washington to its foundations --- as all the evidence points to Nick. Nick knows he’s the perfect scapegoat. But who is framing him, and why?
William Morrow | 9780062991614
LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: Thirteen Days to Washington by Ted Widmer (History)
On the eve of his 52nd birthday, the President-Elect of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, walked onto a train, the first step of his journey to the White House. But it was far from certain what he would find there. Bankrupt and rudderless, the government was on the verge of collapse. To make matters worse, reliable intelligence confirmed a conspiracy to assassinate him as he passed through Baltimore. It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of the Republic hung in the balance. How did Lincoln survive this grueling odyssey, to become the president we know from the history books? LINCOLN ON THE VERGE tells the story of a leader discovering his own strength, improvising brilliantly, and seeing his country up close during these pivotal 13 days.
Simon & Schuster | 9781476739441
PRETTY AS A PICTURE by Elizabeth Little (Thriller)
Marissa Dahl, a successful film editor, travels to a small island off the coast of Delaware to work with director Tony Rees on a feature film. But she soon discovers that on this set, nothing is as it's supposed to be --- or as it seems. There are rumors of accidents and indiscretions, of burgeoning scandals and perilous schemes. Half the crew has been fired. The other half wants to quit. Even the actors have figured out something is wrong. And no one seems to know what happened to the editor she was hired to replace. Then Marissa meets the teenage girls who are determined to solve the real-life murder that is the movie's central subject, and before long, she is drawn into the investigation herself. The only problem is, the killer may still be on the loose. And he might not be finished.
Penguin Books | 9780143110552
PRETTY LITTLE WIFE by Darby Kane (Domestic Thriller)
Paperback Original
Lila Ridgefield lives in an idyllic college town, but not everything is what it seems. Lila isn't what she seems. A student vanished months ago. Now, Lila's husband, Aaron, is also missing. At first these cases are treated as horrible coincidences until it's discovered the student is really the third of three unexplained disappearances over the last few years. The police are desperate to find the connection, if there even is one. With the small town in an uproar, everyone is worried about the whereabouts of their beloved high school teacher. Everyone except Lila, his wife. She's definitely confused about her missing husband but only because she was the last person to see his body, and now it's gone.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780063016408
SAVAGE SON by Jack Carr (Political Thriller)
Deep in the wilds of Siberia, a woman is on the run, pursued by a man harboring secrets --- a man intent on killing her. A traitorous CIA officer has found refuge with the Russian mafia with designs on ensuring that a certain former Navy SEAL sniper is put in the ground. Half a world away, James Reece is recovering from brain surgery in the Montana wilderness, slowly putting his life back together with the help of investigative journalist Katie Buranek and his longtime friend and SEAL teammate Raife Hastings. Unbeknownst to them, the Russian mafia has set their sights on Reece in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Pocket Books | 9781982123710
SHADOWS IN DEATH by J. D. Robb (Mystery/Thriller)
While Eve Dallas examines a fresh body in Washington Square Park, her husband, Roarke, spots a man among the onlookers he’s known since his younger days on the streets of Dublin. A man who claims to be his half brother. A man who kills for a living. Eve is quick to suspect that the victim’s spouse --- resentful over his wife’s affair and poised to inherit her fortune --- would have happily paid an assassin to do his dirty work. Roarke is just as quick to warn her that if Lorcan Cobbe is the hitman, she needs to be careful. Law enforcement agencies worldwide have pursued this cold-hearted killer for years, to no avail. And his lazy smirk when he looked Roarke’s way indicates that he will target anyone who matters to Roarke…and is confident he’ll get away with it.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks | 9781250207258
STOP AT NOTHING by Michael Ledwidge (Thriller)
When a Gulfstream jet goes down in the Bahamas carrying a fortune in cash and ill-gotten diamonds, expat diving instructor Michael Gannon is the only person on the scene. Assuming himself the beneficiary of a drug deal gone bad, Gannon thinks he’s home free with the sudden windfall --- until he realizes he forgot to ask one simple question: Who were the six dead men on the plane? To find the answer, Gannon is soon thrust into an increasingly complex and deadly game of cat and mouse with a group of the world’s most powerful and dangerous men who will stop at nothing to catch him.
Hanover Square Press | 9781335239914
THE THIRD TO DIE by Allison Brennan (Mystery/Thriller)
Detective Kara Quinn is on an early morning jog in Liberty Lake when she discovers the body of a young nurse. The manner of death reveals a highly controlled rage. Word quickly reaches FBI special agent Matt Costa that this murder fits the profile of the elusive Triple Killer, who compulsively strikes every three years, targeting three victims, each three days apart. This time they have a chance to stop him. But only if they can decipher the meaning of his pattern to figure out who he is and where he is hiding before he strikes again. The stakes have never been higher, because if they fail, one of their own team may be next.
Mira | 9780778388357
THE WARSAW PROTOCOL by Steve Berry (Thriller)
The seven precious relics of the Arma Christi, the weapons of Christ, are disappearing from sanctuaries across the globe. After former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone witnesses the theft of one of them, he learns from his old boss, Stephanie Nelle, that a private auction is about to be held where incriminating information on the president of Poland will be offered to the highest bidder. The price of admission to that auction is one of the relics, so Malone is first sent to a castle in Poland to steal the Holy Lance, a thousand-year-old spear sacred not only to Christians but to the Polish people, and then on to the auction itself. But nothing goes as planned, and Malone is thrust into a bloody battle among three nations over information that, if exposed, could change the balance of power in Europe.
St. Martin’s Paperbacks | 9781250140326
WRONG ALIBI: An Alaskan Mystery by Christina Dodd (Mystery/Thriller)
Paperback Original
Eighteen-year-old Evelyn Jones lands a job in small-town Alaska, working for a man in his isolated mountain home. But her bright hopes for the future are shattered when Donald White disappears, leaving her to face charges of theft, embezzlement --- and a brutal double murder. Her protestations of innocence count for nothing. Convicted, she faces life in prison…until fate sends her on the run. Evie's escape leaves her scarred and in hiding, isolated from her family, working under an alias at a wilderness camp. Bent on justice, intent on recovering her life, she searches for the killer who slaughters without remorse.
HQN | 9781335080820
THE WRONG FAMILY by Tarryn Fisher (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Juno was wrong about Winnie Crouch. Before moving in with the Crouch family, Juno thought Winnie and her husband, Nigel, had the perfect life. Only now that she’s living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore. Still, she isn’t one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live out the rest of her days in peace. But that peace is shattered the day Juno overhears a chilling conversation between Winnie and Nigel. She shouldn’t get involved. She really shouldn’t. But this could be her chance to make a few things right. Because if you thought Juno didn’t have a secret of her own, then you were wrong about her, too.
Graydon House | 9781525810008
January 1st
BLOODLINE by Jess Lourey (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
Pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a childhood on the move and chasing the screams and swirls of news-rich city life, she’s eager to settle down. Lilydale’s motto, “Come Home Forever,” couldn’t be more inviting. And yet, something is off in the picture-perfect village. The friendliness borders on intrusive. Joan can’t shake the feeling that every move she makes is being tracked. An archaic organization still seems to hold the town in thrall. So does the sinister secret of a little boy who vanished decades ago. And unless Joan is imagining things, a frighteningly familiar figure from her past is on watch in the shadows.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542016315
INTENTION TREMOR: A Hybrid Collection by Tamara Kaye Sellman (Memoir)
Paperback Original
INTENTION TREMOR collects prose and poetry that chronicle Tamara Kaye Sellman’s life in the five years that followed her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. She wrote the majority of these pieces next to a campfire or inside a travel trailer at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA. One-hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Accelerated Cure Project, which works to accelerate research and improve the quality of life for those affected by MS.
MoonPath Press | 9781936657575
A SPLENDID RUIN by Megan Chance (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
After her mother’s death, penniless May Kimble lives a lonely life until an aunt she didn’t know existed summons her to San Francisco. There she’s welcomed into the wealthy Sullivan family and their social circle. Initially overwhelmed by the opulence of her new life, May soon senses that dark mysteries lurk in the shadows of the Sullivan mansion. Her glamorous cousin often disappears in the night. Her aunt wanders about in a laudanum fog. And a maid keeps hinting that May is in danger. Then, on an early April morning, San Francisco comes tumbling down. Out of the smoldering ruins, May embarks on a harrowing road to reclaim what is hers. This tragic twist of fate, along with the help of an intrepid and charismatic journalist, puts vengeance within May’s reach. But will she take it?
Lake Union Publishing | 9781542022392
On Sale the Week of January 4th in Hardcover
January 5th
ALL THE COLORS OF NIGHT by Jayne Ann Krentz (Romantic Suspense)
North Chastain possesses a paranormal talent that gives him the ability to track down the most dangerous psychic criminals. When his father suddenly falls into a coma-like state, North is convinced it was caused by a deadly artifact that traces back to the days of a secret government program known only as the Bluestone Project. He teams up with antiques expert Sierra Raines to find the artifact, and soon they find themselves at the scene of the Incident. The town and its residents were forever changed by the disaster in the nearby Bluestone Project labs. The pair unearths shocking truths about what happened that fateful night, but someone in town knows what they’ve discovered and will do anything to make sure the secrets stay buried.
Berkley | 9781984806819
AMERICAN TRAITOR: A Pike Logan Novel by Brad Taylor (Thriller/Adventure)
Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill are enjoying a sunny vacation down under when they get disturbing news: their friend and colleague, Clifford Delmonty, is in serious trouble. While working as a contractor at an Australian F-35 facility, the former Taskforce member --- callsign Dunkin --- saw something he shouldn’t have, and now he’s on the run from Chinese agents. Pike and Jennifer soon discover that Dunkin’s attackers are a dangerous link to a much larger scheme that could launch a full-on conflict between China and Taiwan. Pike learns that the Chinese have a devious plan to bait the island nation into all-out war by destabilizing the government and manipulating an artificial intelligence defense system.
William Morrow | 9780062886064
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME by Julia Claiborne Johnson (Historical Fiction)
It’s 1938, and women seeking a quick, no-questions split from their husbands head to Reno, Nevada. But they have to wait six weeks to become “residents.” Many of these wealthy, soon-to-be divorcees flock to the Flying Leap, a dude ranch that caters to their every need. Twenty-four-year-old Ward spent one year at Yale before his family lost everything in the Great Depression; now he’s earning an honest living as a ranch hand at the Flying Leap. Two new guests are about to upend everything he thinks he knows: Nina, a St. Louis heiress and amateur pilot back for her third divorce, and Emily, whose bravest moment in life was leaving her cheating husband back in San Francisco and driving herself to Reno.
Custom House | 9780062916365
BLACK BUCK by Mateo Askaripour (Satire/Dark Humor)
An unambitious 22-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother. A chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, New York City’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the 36th floor. After enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he’s hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780358380887
BONE CANYON by Lee Goldberg (Thriller)
A catastrophic wildfire scorches the Santa Monica Mountains, exposing the charred remains of a woman who disappeared years ago. The investigation is assigned to Eve Ronin, the youngest homicide detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a position that forces her to prove herself again and again. This time, though, she has much more to prove. Bones don’t lie, and these have a horrific story to tell. Eve tirelessly digs into the past, unearthing dark secrets that reveal nothing about the case is as it seems. With almost no one she can trust, her relentless pursuit of justice for the forgotten dead could put Eve’s own life in peril.
Thomas & Mercer | 9781542042710
THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE by Katrine Engberg (Literary Thriller/Mystery)
In the coronary care unit at one of Copenhagen’s leading medical centers, a nurse fills a syringe with an overdose of heart medication and stealthily enters the room of an older male patient. Six days earlier, a paperboy on his route in central Copenhagen stumbles upon the naked body of a dead woman. The cause of death is exsanguination, the draining of all the blood in her body. Lead investigator Jeppe Kørner takes on the investigation. His partner, Anette Werner, is restless at home with a demanding newborn and an equally demanding husband. While Jeppe pounds the streets looking for answers, Anette decides to do a little freelance sleuthing. But operating on her own exposes her to dangers she can’t even begin to fathom.
Gallery/Scout Press | 9781982127602
A CROOKED TREE by Una Mannion (Fiction)
It is the early 1980s, and 15-year-old Libby is obsessed with The Field Guide to the Trees of North America, a gift her Irish immigrant father gave her before he died. She finds solace in “The Kingdom,” a stand of red oak and thick mountain laurel near her home in suburban Pennsylvania, where she can escape from her large and unruly family and share menthol cigarettes and lukewarm beers with her best friend. One night, while driving home, Libby’s mother, exhausted and overwhelmed with the fighting in the backseat, pulls over and orders Libby’s little sister, Ellen, to walk home. What none of this family knows, as they drive off leaving a 12-year-old girl on the side of the road, is what will happen next.
Harper | 9780063049840
DEATH OF A MESSENGER: A Koa Kane Hawaiian Mystery by Robert McCaw (Mystery/Thriller)
On Hawaii Island, an anonymous 911 caller reports a body at Pohakuloa, the Army’s live-fire training area. Hilo Chief Detective Koa Kane, a cop with his own secret criminal past, finds a mutilated corpse --- bearing all the hallmarks of ancient ritual sacrifice. He encounters a host of obstacles as he pursues the murderer --- an incompetent local medical examiner, hostility from both haoles (Westerners) and sovereignty advocates, and a myriad of lies. Koa races to discover whether the victim stumbled upon a gang of high-tech archaeological thieves, or learned a secret so shocking it cost him his life and put others in mortal danger.
Oceanview Publishing | 9781608094035
FEATHERHOOD: A Memoir of Two Fathers and a Magpie by Charlie Gilmour (Memoir)
One spring day, a baby magpie falls out of its nest and into Charlie Gilmour’s hands. Magpies, he soon discovers, are as clever and mischievous as monkeys. By the time the creature develops shiny black feathers that inspire the name Benzene, Charlie and the bird have forged an unbreakable bond. While caring for Benzene, Charlie comes across a poem written by his biological father, an eccentric British poet named Heathcote Williams, who vanished when Charlie was six months old. As he grapples with Heathcote’s abandonment, Charlie is drawn to the poem, in which Heathcote describes how an impish young jackdaw fell from its nest and captured his affection. Over time, Benzene helps Charlie unravel his fears about repeating the past --- and embrace the role of father himself.
Scribner | 9781501198502
THE FORTUNATE ONES by Ed Tarkington (Fiction)
When Charlie Boykin was young, he thought his life with his single mother on the working-class side of Nashville was perfectly fine. But when she arranges for him to be admitted as a scholarship student to an elite private school, he is suddenly introduced to what the world can feel like to someone cushioned by money. That world is an almost irresistible place where one can bend --- and break --- rules and still end up untarnished. As he gets drawn into a friendship with a charismatic upperclassman, Archer Creigh, and an affluent family that treats him like an adopted son, Charlie quickly adapts to life in the upper echelons of Nashville society. But over time, he is increasingly pulled into covering for Archer’s constant deceits and his casual bigotry.
Algonquin Books | 9781616206802
THE GATES OF ATHENS by Conn Iggulden (Historical Fiction)
Under Darius the Great, King of Kings, the mighty Persian army --- swollen by 10,000 warriors known as The Immortals --- have come to subjugate the Greeks. In their path, vastly outnumbered, stands an army of freeborn Athenians. Among them is a clever, fearsome and cunning soldier-statesman, Xanthippus. Against all odds, the Athenians emerge victorious. Ten years later, Xanthippus watches helplessly as Athens succumbs to the bitter politics of factionalism. Trust is at a low ebb when the Persians cross the Hellespont in ever greater numbers in their second attempt to raze Athens to the ground. Facing overwhelming forces by land and sea, the Athenians call on their Spartan allies for assistance --- to delay the Persians at the treacherous pass of Thermopylae.
Pegasus Books | 9781643136660
THE HEIRESS: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley (Historical Fiction)
As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh’s doctor prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her. In a frenzy of desperation, Anne discards her laudanum and flees to the London home of her cousin, Colonel John Fitzwilliam, who helps her through her painful recovery. Yet, once she returns to health, new challenges await.
William Morrow | 9780063032002
THE LIAR'S DICTIONARY by Eley Williams (Fiction/Humor)
Peter Winceworth, Victorian lexicographer, is toiling away at the letter S for Swansby's multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary. His disaffection compels him to insert unauthorized fictitious entries into the dictionary in an attempt to assert some sense of individual purpose and artistic freedom. In the present day, Mallory, a young intern employed by the publisher, is tasked with uncovering these mountweazels before the work is digitized. She also has to contend with threatening phone calls from an anonymous caller. Is the change in the definition of marriage really that upsetting? And does the caller really intend for the Swansby's staff to 'burn in hell'?
Doubleday | 9780385546775
A LIE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT YOURSELF by Peter Ho Davies (Fiction)
A LIE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT YOURSELF traces the complex consequences of one of the most personal yet public, intimate yet political experiences a family can have: to have a child and, conversely, the decision not to have a child. A first pregnancy is interrupted by test results at once catastrophic and uncertain. A second pregnancy ends in a fraught birth, a beloved child, the purgatory of further tests --- and questions that reverberate down the years. When does sorrow turn to shame? When does love become labor? When does chance become choice? When does a diagnosis become destiny? And when does fact become fiction?
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | 9780544277717
NEIGHBORS by Danielle Steel (Fiction)
Meredith White was one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces. But a personal tragedy cut her acting career short and alienated her from her family. For the last 15 years, Meredith has been living alone in San Francisco with two trusted caretakers. Then, on a muggy late summer day, a massive earthquake strikes Northern California. Without a moment’s hesitation, Meredith invites her stunned and shaken neighbors into her mostly undamaged home as the recovery begins. Without the walls and privacy of their own homes, one by one, new relationships are forged. In the heart of the crisis, Meredith finds herself venturing back into the world --- and suddenly sees her isolation, her estranged family and even her acting career in a whole new light.
Delacorte Press | 9781984821379
NICK by Michael Farris Smith (Historical Fiction)
Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's periphery, he was at the center of a very different story --- one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed firsthand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance --- doomed from the very beginning --- to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavor of debauchery and violence.
Little, Brown and Company | 9780316529761
OUTLAWED by Anna North (Western/Adventure)
The day of her wedding, 17-year-old Ada's life looks good. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide if she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all.
Bloomsbury Publishing | 9781635575422
PICKARD COUNTY ATLAS by Chris Harding Thornton (Noir Thriller)
The Reddick family patriarch has decided, decades after authorities ended the search for his murdered boy’s body, to lay a headstone. Instead of bringing closure, this decision is the spark that threatens to set Pickard County ablaze. On a fateful night after the memorial service, sheriff’s deputy Harley Jensen tails the youngest Reddick and town miscreant, Paul, through the abandoned farms and homes outside their run-down Nebraska town. The pursuit puts Harley in the path of Pam Reddick, a restless young woman who is drawn to his dark history. Unfolding over six tense days, PICKARD COUNTY ATLAS sets Harley and the Reddicks on a collision course --- propelling them toward an incendiary moment that will either redeem or end them.
MCD | 9780374231255
THE PROPHETS by Robert Jones, Jr. (Historical Fiction)
Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man --- a fellow slave --- seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony.
G.P. Putnam's Sons | 9780593085684
THE PUSH by Ashley Audrain (Psychological Thriller)
Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby, Violet, that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter --- she doesn’t behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son, Sam, is born --- and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fallout forces Blythe to face the truth.
Pamela Dorman Books | 9781984881663
SAVAGE ROAD: A Hayley Chill Thriller by Chris Hauty (Political Thriller)
When a series of devastating cyber attacks rock the United States, Hayley Chill is tasked by the “deeper state” to track down their source. NSA analysts insist that Moscow is the culprit, but that accusation brings plenty of complications with Hayley directing the president as a double agent against the Russians. With increasing pressure on the president to steer him towards a devastating war, it’s up to Hayley to stop the mysterious computer hacker and prevent World War III --- while also uncovering some shocking truths about her own life.
Atria/Emily Bestler Books | 9781982126612
TWENTY: A Jack Swyteck Novel by James Grippando (Legal Thriller)
Jack Swyteck receives an emergency text from Riverside Day School. Both his daughter, Righley, and his wife, FBI agent Andie Henning, are in danger. Andie hears the fire alarms, then loud popping noises and screams coming from the hallway. The police find a handgun on the school grounds registered to a Muslim man named Amir Khoury. Within minutes Al Qaeda claims responsibility. Amir is married to Andie’s friend, Lilly, a WASP whose bloodline goes back to the American Revolution. When Xavier, Amir and Lilly’s oldest child, confesses to the crime, the local community’s anti-Muslim fervor explodes to levels unseen since 9/11. Jack must unearth the Khourys’ family secrets in order to expose the shocking truth and save his client from certain death.
Harper | 9780062915085
THE WIFE UPSTAIRS by Rachel Hawkins (Domestic Thriller)
Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates, the kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester, Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend. As Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past --- or his --- catches up to her?
St. Martin's Press | 9781250245496
On Sale the Week of January 4th in Paperback
January 5th
ALL THE BEST LIES by Joanna Schaffhausen (Mystery)
FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: Who murdered his mother? Camilla was brutally stabbed to death more than 40 years ago while baby Reed lay in his crib mere steps away. The trail went so cold that the Las Vegas Police Department has given up hope of solving the case. But then a shattering family secret changes everything Reed knows about his origins, his murdered mother and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham. Unable to trust his family with the details of his personal investigation, Reed enlists his friend, suspended cop Ellery Hathaway, to join his quest in Vegas. They discover that young Camilla had snared the attention of dangerous men, any of whom might have wanted to shut her up for good.
Minotaur Books | 9781250781642
BIG LIES IN A SMALL TOWN by Diane Chamberlain (Fiction)
North Carolina, 2018: Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, Morgan Christopher finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women's Correctional Center. But then a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. But what she doesn't expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep and the price of being different might just end in murder. What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies?
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250087348
BLAME THE DEAD by Ed Ruggero (Historical Thriller)
Sicily, 1943. Eddie Harkins, former Philadelphia beat cop turned Military Police lieutenant, reluctantly finds himself first at the scene of a murder at the US Army’s 11th Field Hospital. There the nurses contend with heat, dirt, short-handed staffs, the threat of German counterattack, an ever-present flood of horribly wounded GIs, and the threat of assault by one of their own --- at least until someone shoots Dr. Myers Stephenson in the head. With help from nurse Kathleen Donnelly, once a childhood friend and now perhaps something more, it soon becomes clear to Harkins that the unit is rotten to its core. As the battle lines push forward, Harkins is running out of time to find one killer before he can strike again.
Forge Books | 9781250312754
BROTHER & SISTER: A Memoir by Diane Keaton (Memoir)
When they were children in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1950s, Diane Keaton and her younger brother, Randy, were best friends and companions. Their mother captured their American-dream childhoods in her diaries, and on camera. But as they grew up, Randy became troubled, then reclusive. By the time he reached adulthood, he was divorced, an alcoholic, a man who couldn't hold on to full-time work --- his life a world away from his sister's, and from the rest of their family. Now Diane is delving into the nuances of their shared, and separate, pasts to confront the difficult question of why and how Randy ended up living his life on "the other side of normal."
Vintage | 9781101974278
CONSIDER THIS: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different by Chuck Palahniuk (Memoir)
In CONSIDER THIS, bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing. With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with anecdotes, postcards from the road and much more.
Grand Central Publishing | 9781538717974
A DIVIDED LOYALTY: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd (Historical Mystery)
Chief Inspector Brian Leslie is sent to Avebury, a village set inside a great prehistoric stone circle not far from Stonehenge. A young woman has been murdered next to a mysterious, hooded, figure-like stone, but no one recognizes her --- or admits to it. Despite a thorough investigation, it appears that her killer has simply vanished. Asked to take a second look at Leslie’s inquiry, Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge also finds very little to go on in Avebury, slowly widening his search beyond the village --- only to discover that unlikely (possibly even unreliable) clues are pointing him toward an impossible solution, one that will draw the wrath of the Yard down on him, and very likely see him dismissed if he pursues it.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062905543
THE DUTCH HOUSE by Ann Patchett (Fiction)
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.
Harper Perennial | 9780062963680
ENTER THE AARDVARK by Jessica Anthony (Political Satire)
Early one August morning, millennial congressman Alexander Paine Wilson (R) receives a strange package in the mail. Inside is an enormous taxidermied aardvark. What does it mean? Well, everything. Hurtling from the beginning of the universe to present-day Washington, DC, this astonishing, edge-of-your-seat novel is at once a piercing look into the sick heart of our democracy and a profoundly moving meditation on the nature of love, power and evil. In the end, you will not only know the meaning of the aardvark, you will see our current reality through new eyes.
Back Bay Books | 9780316496131
THE FIRST TO LIE by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Psychological Thriller)
We all have our reasons for being who we are. But what if being someone else could get you what you want? After a devastating betrayal, a young woman sets off on an obsessive path to justice, no matter what dark family secrets are revealed. What she doesn't know is that she isn't the only one plotting her revenge. An affluent daughter of privilege. A glamorous manipulative wannabe. A determined reporter, in too deep. A grieving widow who must choose her new reality. Who will be the first to lie? And when the stakes are life and death, do a few lies really matter?
Forge Books | 9781250258816
FOLLOW ME TO GROUND by Sue Rainsford (Fiction/Magical Realism)
Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals --- or “Cures” --- by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover --- and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town and the Ground itself.
Scribner | 9781982133641
THE GIMMICKS by Chris McCormick (Historical Fiction)
Ruben Petrosian grieves the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, a crime still denied by the descendants of its perpetrators, and dreams of vengeance. When his orphaned cousin, Avo, comes to live with his family, Ruben’s life is transformed. But their paths diverge when Ruben vanishes --- drafted into an extremist group that will stop at nothing to make Turkey acknowledge the genocide. Unmoored by Ruben’s disappearance, Avo and his archrival, Mina, grow close in his absence. But fate brings the cousins together once more, when Ruben secretly contacts Avo, convincing him to leave Mina and join the extremists. Left to unravel the threads of this story is Terry “Angel Hair” Krill, whose life intersects with Avo, Ruben and Mina’s in surprising and devastating ways.
Harper Perennial | 9780062908582
THE GIRL IN WHITE GLOVES: A Novel of Grace Kelly by Kerri Maher (Historical Fiction)
Grace knows what people see. She’s the Cinderella story. An icon of glamour and elegance frozen in dazzling Technicolor. The picture of perfection. The girl in white gloves. But behind the lens, beyond the panoramic views of glistening Mediterranean azure, she knows the truth. The sacrifices it takes for an unappreciated girl from Philadelphia to defy her family and become the reigning queen of the screen. The heartbreaking reasons she trades Hollywood for a crown. The loneliness of being a princess in a fairy tale kingdom that is all too real. Hardest of all for her adoring fans and loyal subjects to comprehend is the harsh reality that to be the most envied woman in the world does not mean she is the happiest.
Berkley | 9780451492081
HIGHFIRE by Eoin Colfer (Fantasy/Humor)
In the days of yore, he flew the skies and scorched angry mobs. Now he hides from swamp tour boats and rises only with the greatest reluctance from his Laz-Z-Boy recliner. For centuries, he struck fear in hearts far and wide as Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie. Now he goes by Vern. He is the last of his kind, the last dragon. A canny Cajun swamp rat, young Everett “Squib” Moreau does what he can to survive and has finally decided to work for a shady smuggler. But on his first night, he witnesses his boss murdered by a crooked constable. Regence Hooke is not just a dirty cop who happens to want Squib’s momma in the worst way. When Hooke goes after his hidden witness with a grenade launcher, Squib finds himself airlifted from certain death by…a dragon?
Harper Perennial | 9780062938572
HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston (Fiction/Short Stories)
In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston --- the sole black student at the college --- was living in New York, “desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.” During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. HITTING A STRAIGHT LICK WITH A CROOKED STICK is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s “lost” Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives.
Amistad | 9780062915801
I JUST WANTED TO SAVE MY FAMILY: A Memoir written by Stéphan Pélissier, translated by Adriana Hunter (Memoir)
Paperback Original
For trying to save his in-laws, who were fleeing certain death in Syria, Stéphan Pélissier was threatened with 15 years in prison by the Greek justice system, which accused him of human smuggling. His crime? Having gone to search for the parents, brother and sister of his wife, Zéna, in Greece rather than leaving them to undertake a treacherous journey by boat to Italy. Their joy on finding each other quickly turned into a nightmare: Pélissier was arrested as a result of a missing car registration and thrown into prison. Although his relatives were ultimately able to seek asylum --- legally --- in France, Pélissier had to fight to prove his innocence, and to uphold the values of common humanity and solidarity in which he so strongly believes.
Other Press | 9781635420180
JOINT CUSTODY by Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Jackie Logsted (Romantic Comedy)
Paperback Original
The Man has custody Monday through Friday, The Woman has custody on the weekends. But that's not enough for Gatz, who will do anything to bring them back together --- even if it kills him. And it almost did. Of course he knows chocolate is bad for him, especially two whole pounds of it, but it’s the risk he’s willing to take to get them back together. Gatz knows that The Man and The Woman are perfect for each other. How can they not see it too? She is an editor, and he’s a writer. She’s a social butterfly, and he’s as introverted as a guy can get. After the misguided death-by-chocolate attempt, Gatz thinks he still has time. But when New Man --- so handsome, so nice, so perfect --- enters The Woman's life, he realizes he’ll need to step up his game.
Berkley | 9780593199589
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CARSON McCULLERS: A Memoir by Jenn Shapland (Memoir)
Jenn Shapland is a graduate student when she first uncovers letters written to Carson McCullers by a woman named Annemarie. Though Shapland recognizes herself in the letters, which are intimate and unabashed in their feelings, she does not see McCullers as history has portrayed her. Her curiosity gives way to fixation, not just with this newly discovered side of McCullers’ life, but with how we tell queer love stories. Why, Shapland asks, are the stories of women paved over by others’ narratives? What happens when constant revision is required of queer women trying to navigate and self-actualize in straight spaces? And what might the tracing of McCullers’ life --- her history, her secrets, her legacy --- reveal to Shapland about herself?
Tin House Books | 9781951142292
NOT MY BOY by Kelly Simmons (Psychological Thriller)
Paperback Original
When Hannah packs up her past and moves to the cottage next door to her sister, she hopes the luxe neighborhood and close family ties will be the perfect escape for her son and the shadows that trail them. But when a young girl goes missing days after they unload their final boxes and her son is quickly thrown under suspicion, Hannah must do whatever it takes to protect her child. Even if that means pointing the blame her sister's way instead. With investigators swarming and neighborhood scrutiny closing in, the divide between two sisters grows. As one fiercely defends her husband, the other shields her boy from the crime, keeping quiet the secrets that might unravel it all. And all the while, one young girl has vanished, and someone is to blame.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781728217666
OUR DARKEST NIGHT: A Novel of Italy and the Second World War by Jennifer Robson (Historical Fiction)
Paperback Original
With Nazi Germany now occupying most of her beloved homeland, and the threat of imprisonment and deportation growing ever more certain, Antonina Mazin has but one hope to survive --- to leave Venice and hide in the countryside with a man she has only just met. Nico Gerardi was studying for the priesthood until circumstances forced him to leave the seminary to run his family’s farm. He could not stand by when the fascists and Nazis began taking innocent lives. Rather than risk a perilous escape across the mountains, Nina will pose as his new bride. But Nico’s provincial neighbors are wary of this soft and educated woman they do not know. Even worse, their distrust is shared by a local Nazi official with a vendetta against Nico.
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062674975
THE RED LOTUS by Chris Bohjalian (Thriller)
Alexis and Austin don't have a typical "meet cute" --- the couple comes together for the first time when Alexis, an emergency room doctor, sutures a bullet wound in Austin's arm. Six months later, they're on a romantic getaway in Vietnam: a bike tour on which Austin can show Alexis his passion for cycling, and he can pay his respects to the place where his father and uncle fought in the war. But then Austin fails to return from a solo ride. Alexis' boyfriend has vanished, the only clue left behind a bright yellow energy gel dropped on the road. As Alexis grapples with this bewildering loss, she starts to uncover a series of strange lies that force her to wonder: Where did Austin go? Why did he really bring her to Vietnam? And how much danger has he left her in?
Vintage | 9780525565963
RUST: A Memoir of Steel and Grit by Eliese Colette Goldbach (Memoir)
To ArcelorMittal Steel, Eliese is known as #6691: Utility Worker, but this was never her dream. Fresh out of college, eager to leave behind her conservative hometown and come to terms with her Christian roots, Eliese found herself applying for a job at the local steel mill. The mill is everything she was trying to escape, but it's also her only shot at financial security in an economically devastated and forgotten part of America. In RUST, Eliese brings the reader inside the belly of the mill and the middle American upbringing that brought her there in the first place. She takes a long and intimate look at her Rust Belt childhood and struggles to reconcile her desire to leave without turning her back on the people she's come to love.
Flatiron Books | 9781250239419
SCARLET FEVER by Rita Mae Brown (Mystery)
Frigid February air has settled into the bones of the Blue Ridge Mountains, making for a slow foxhunting season, though “Sister” Jane Arnold’s enthusiasm is not so easily deterred. With the winter chill come tweed coats, blazing fireplaces --- and perhaps another to share the warmth with, as the bold hunting scarlets worn by the men in Sister Jane’s hunting club make the hearts of women flutter. Harry Dunbar, a member of the Jefferson Hunt club, is found with his skull cracked at the bottom of the stairs to a local store. There are no telltale signs of foul play --- save for the priceless (and stolen) Erté fox ring in his pocket. Sister and her hounds set out to uncover the truth: Was this simply an accident --- a case of bad luck --- or something much more sinister?
Ballantine Books | 9780593130025
THESE GHOSTS ARE FAMILY by Maisy Card (Fiction)
Stanford Solomon has a shocking, 30-year-old secret. And it’s about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley, a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead. THESE GHOSTS ARE FAMILY revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem.
Simon & Schuster | 9781982117443
TOMBSTONE: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell by Tom Clavin (History)
On October 26, 1881, nine men clashed in what would be known as the most famous shootout in American frontier history. Thirty bullets were exchanged in 30 seconds, killing three men and wounding three others. Cattle rustlers had been terrorizing the back country of Mexico and selling the livestock they stole to corrupt ranchers. The Mexican government built forts along the border to try to thwart American outlaws. That October, tensions boiled over with Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne confronting the Tombstone marshal, Virgil Earp, and the suddenly deputized Wyatt and Morgan Earp and shotgun-toting Doc Holliday. Tom Clavin peers behind decades of legend surrounding the story of Tombstone to reveal the true story of the drama and violence that made it famous.
St. Martin’s Griffin | 9781250214607
TWO’S COMPANY by Jill Mansell (Fiction)
Paperback Original
Celebrity couple Jack and Cass Mandeville are successful, good-looking, likable and famous for having an ideal marriage. On Jack's 40th birthday --- a milestone he's been both anticipating and dreading --- a stunning, and stunningly intelligent, redhead named Imogen turns up to interview the couple for a high-profile magazine. Like a bolt of lightning, Jack is hit with a midlife crisis of epic proportions, and Jack and Cass' proverbial bubble bursts. This drastic turn of events flips their lives upside down, and sends their entire family, friends, local community and fans around the country into a tailspin. Cass can only hope Jack will snap out of it soon, but it's too late already. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Sourcebooks Landmark | 9781492632573
UNCANNY VALLEY: A Memoir by Anna Wiener (Memoir)
In her mid-20s, at the height of tech industry idealism, Anna Wiener --- stuck, broke and looking for meaning in her work, like any good millennial --- left a job in book publishing for the promise of the new digital economy. She moved from New York to San Francisco, where she landed at a big-data startup in the heart of the Silicon Valley bubble: a world of surreal extravagance, dubious success, and fresh-faced entrepreneurs hell-bent on domination, glory and, of course, progress. Anna arrived during a massive cultural shift, as the tech industry rapidly transformed into a locus of wealth and power rivaling Wall Street. But a new Silicon Valley began to emerge: one in far over its head, one that enriched itself at the expense of the idyllic future it claimed to be building.
Picador | 9781250785695
WATCHING FROM THE DARK by Gytha Lodge (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Aidan Poole logs on to his laptop late at night to Skype his girlfriend, Zoe. To his horror, he realizes that there is someone else in her flat. Aidan can only listen to the sounds of a violent struggle taking place in the bathroom --- and then the sound of silence. When Aidan’s cryptic messages finally reach the police, Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens and his team take the case --- and discover the body. They soon find that no one has a bad word to say about Zoe, a bighearted young artist at the center of a curious web of waifs and strays, each relying on her for support, each hiding dark secrets and buried resentments. Has one of her so-called “friends” been driven to murder? Or does Aidan have the biggest secret of them all?
Random House Trade Paperbacks | 9781984818096
WEST END GIRLS by Jenny Colgan (Fiction)
Paperback Original
They may be twins, but Lizzie and Penny Berry are complete opposites. Penny is the life of the party, while Lizzy is often left out of the crowd. The one trait they do share is a longing to do something spectacular with their lives, and as far as these two are concerned, there’s no better place to make their dreams come true than London. Presented with a once-in-a-lifetime house-sit at their grandmother’s home in a very desirable London neighborhood, it finally seems like Lizzie and Penny are a step closer to the exciting cosmopolitan life they’ve always wanted. But the more time they spend in the big city, they quickly discover it’s nothing like they expected. They may have to dream new dreams…but are they up to the challenge?
William Morrow Paperbacks | 9780062869623
WHAT WAITS FOR YOU by Joseph Schneider (Mystery)
Paperback Original
An elderly couple's home is transformed into a scene straight out of a horror film, their mutilated bodies the only clue left behind by the killer --- and they are only the unlucky first in a series of impossible murders. Soon dubbed the Eastside Creeper, the murderer camps out undetected in his victims' homes until he's ready to strike. After killing, he vanishes like smoke. Considered an expert in the grotesque, Detective Tully Jarsdel lands this seemingly unsolvable case. An academic-turned-cop, Jarsdel is intrigued by the Eastside Creeper. As the murders become more gruesome and the clues more inscrutable, widespread panic sets in. Jarsdel's unconventional methods may be the only thing left between a killer and a city about to descend into chaos.
Poisoned Pen Press | 9781492684473
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